Businesses and organizations need to come up with out-of-the-box recruiting strategies if they aim to attract the best talent. Job seekers and applicants are always on the lookout for the best employee benefits they can get their hands on and it would even be better if you could offer your own unique employee benefits to attract the brightest talents on the market. The more attractive the benefits in your recruitment packages are, the better your chances are of reeling in the best and brightest candidates to help steer your business to success. In this article, we will discuss out-of-the-box recruiting strategies that will help you build the best team!
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Why Do You Need Out-of-the-box Recruiting Strategies?
Some of the reasons why your business may need to come up with a unique recruiting strategy include:
- The employment market is competitive, so you need to stand out with what you have to offer your new employees through recruiting strategies and employer partnerships; this way, you will get the first pick of the employee pool.
- Being able to pick first means you will get to hire the best talents before they are taken off the market.
- You can also learn a great deal about your applicants as every step of a unique recruiting process will tell you a lot about them; you will know whether they will be a good fit for your company before you make them your employees.
- The overall result will be a stronger, more efficient business with the manpower to keep it competitive and even get ahead of the competition.
Looking for a unique way to recruit and attract top employees in the competitive job market? Invest in an employer partnership with BeMo. Through BeMo's employee benefits program, you can offer potential employees something out-of-the-box and unique by investing in their future and their education. Through a partnership with BeMo, your employees can go back to school or advance their professional skills with the help of our experts. Or, your employees' children can get a head start on their education and get accepted to even the best programs.
#1 Out-of-the-box Recruiting Strategy: Make Use of Technology
Begin with your careers page
The first way your new potential employee will reach out to you is via your careers page. It is here that they will first experience what your business and the vacant position are all about.
Take the time to work on your careers page. It should have all the details about vacancies that the candidates can easily navigate through to find all the information they need.
Your page could also incorporate images and videos of the workplace and general areas. It can tell a story about employee career growth opportunities, give insight into a collaborative workplace, a snapshot of a day in the life of employees – anything to give applicants a sense of what they can expect when they join your organization.
Most importantly, when it comes to attracting new recruits, your careers page should clearly demonstrate your company culture, its values, and its missions among other company details. It should be clear what they will be helping to achieve as part of the company as well as inform them on what “a day in the office” will look like.
It is also a good idea to make the initial application process as easy as possible. Yet, it should also serve as the first filter for removing inept or unqualified candidates using tests, quizzes, and questionnaires. It is about finding that sweet spot.
Leverage new social media platforms
Although this might not be as novel an idea, and you probably do use job boards and platforms like LinkedIn to invite applications, you should remember that the digital world is a highly evolving medium.
For example, TikTok has become one of the most downloaded applications ever. This indicates it has become the leading social media platform ahead of Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter.
Advertising on this platform would allow you to reach a younger outlier that has shunned the “older” platforms. Of course, you may need to create ads that are suitable for the particular platform which, in this case, would be short videos.
Implement reputation management
Regularly track what is being said about you. Simple online searches for “What is it like to work at [YOUR ORGANIZATION]?” or “[YOUR ORGANIZATION] reviews” can give you insights into how people feel about your business. This also offers you an opportunity, in case of bad reviews, to reach out and defend your reputation.
You can even offer to connect and communicate with the people who are seeking the review information – who are most likely considering working for you.
The reputation management can be handled in-house or by outsourcing it to third-party contractors who can undertake the task for you.
Become a choice place of employment
One of the first things job seekers look for is whether the place of employment has a conducive environment to work in.
Being on Forbes’ America’s Best Employers or Glassdoor's Employees’ Choice Best Places to Work list would be a boost to your business’ reputation that will attract the best talent.
Create that environment and then make sure your employees vote for you each time around.
Implement modern working structures
Remote working is no longer a taboo in the business world. You need to adopt inclusive working conditions to accommodate a workforce that has dynamic working preferences.
While it doesn’t mean you should completely restructure your working environment, it does mean that you may need to be open to highly-qualified candidates who prefer to work from home – which could even be located halfway across the world.
If you think you may need your staff to be in the office, you can consider implementing a hybrid working model where they report to the office on selected days.
#2 Out-of-the-box Recruiting Strategy: Manage Your Reputation
Reward your employees
Offer the best employee rewards system you can build, so you have happy employees that will stand testimony to your business being a preferred place of employment.
This system doesn’t have to be complicated. You can start with simple praise that is shared during meets, on notice boards or in weekly email updates. A simple “thank you” message praising an employee could do more than the money you pay them.
This will create a happy workforce that will reward you back with positive reviews and votes.
Do some internal research
Your employees can be one of the best sources of information. Make it a habit to send out questionnaires and surveys at regular intervals.
Anonymous feedback should help you see if your ship is heading in the right direction. The survey participants can tell you what you need to improve on, continue or get rid of.
Again, this is all with the intent of making your organization a better working place and maintaining it to the point where they will spread the word for you.
Do some external research
Reach out to your clients and ask if there is anything you can do by way of improving the services you provide them.
The input can serve as feedback on new positions you need to create and the exact skill set that is required to fill them. This, in turn, will help you outline the exact qualifications you need to seek in your recruits narrowing – and focusing – the talent pool you need to select from.
Referral programs
Implement referral programs where your current employees can refer someone they know is fit enough to fill a position.
You can also post a request for referrals online where anyone can send links to your application sites. This way, anyone who sees them can forward the link to someone they know is qualified for the job.
Care needs to be taken here to avoid nepotism, and the best way to do that is to make the recruitment and hiring processes as transparent as possible.
#3 Out-of-the-box Recruiting Strategy: Recruitment Time
#4 Out-of-the-box Recruiting Strategy: Packages, Perks, and Offers
Packages that stand out
One of the first things new applicants look for in a job is the perks. Apart from working in a field that gives them a sense of achievement, satisfaction, and security they also want to have “extra benefits” that go beyond these basic remunerations.
Apart from benefits required by law that must be provided for workers – including the likes of holiday pay and workers' compensation in case of injury – your package can include:
- Vacation packages, wellness programs, retreats, and spa memberships.
- Hair salon, tailor, store, and gym discount agreements with third-party businesses.
- Extended health care and dental plans.
- Life and disability insurance.
- Pension or retirement saving plans.
Offer visas and work permits
If you can offer visas and work permits you will have the ability to attract top talent on a global scale.
This will need collaboration with the government to find out if the skills that you seek to employ are not readily available in the country. But, if you manage it, you will have a worldwide pool of skills to hire from.
Offer to pay for further education
One of the best ways of attracting a talented workforce is by offering potential candidates the opportunity to further their education while they work for you.
This further education plan could include anything from certificates and licenses to graduate and postgraduate studies.
An even better offer would be to help ensure they get into the graduate or postgraduate schools of their choice by working with college admissions consulting firms.
You can take this offer one step further and extend the service to include the employees’ family. For example, should any of the employees have children, the offer would mean the children are also covered when they seek admission to a college or university.
Conclusion
The whole purpose of adopting out-of-the-box recruiting strategies is to ensure the continuity and successful progress of your business or organization.
The key lesson to take here is that you should always be open to new ways of finding the best talent you can get your hands on. Keep adapting to new technologies and trends and keep an ear to the ground on your reputation as a preferred employer. Finally, make sure you always have a healthy payment package.
FAQ
1. Is it becoming difficult to find and hire new talent?
Yes. People have the option of finding a job using the internet. Social media platforms and job board sites have made it easy for people to search for jobs. And unless you have a recruiting strategy that stands out, you will always be losing new talent to your competitors.
2. What is the best strategy to adopt when recruiting new talent?
Your best chances of acquiring new talent lie in adopting the internet into your hiring strategy. Social media and professional platforms are where you should look for your next hire. But, that doesn’t mean you should ignore the traditional methods like newspapers.
3. Where should our recruiting strategy begin?
The recruitment strategy should begin from within your organization. Your HR should work on the definitions of vacant positions and the benefits that come with them. Policies and procedures should be clearly outlined before the recruitment process even begins. This is your chance to make it as attractive as possible.
4. Who are the stakeholders in my recruiting strategy?
All employees are stakeholders in your recruiting strategy. Frontline you have the recruiters and HR personnel. You have the marketing team with your digital marketing team. All employees need to be your testimony for a preferred place of work.
5. What social media platforms should our recruiting strategy focus on?
One of the best platforms to find new talent is LinkedIn. This is because professionals advertise their CVs, resumes, and work experience, network, and actively search for jobs on the platform.
You need to also seek out other hobby and interest websites where people gather as per their interests. Good examples would be professional associations like the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
6. What are some signs of great recruitment prospects?
Apart from qualifications and certifications, you can look into various attributes that indicate you have found a great candidate including their work experience, extracurricular activities, memberships they belong to, and reference letters they possess.
In an interview look out for signs indicating confidence, enthusiasm, honesty, and intelligence.
7. How much of our workforce can be freelancers and remote workers?
When it comes to freelance and remote workers, the sky’s the limit as to how many you can hire. Thanks to the internet some companies are made up of 100% remote and/or freelance workforces – a great example is Automattic, the guys behind WordPress (among other things).
What matters is your business process and service delivery – therefore, organize your workforce accordingly.
8. What are some of the best application and recruitment tracking systems?
While there are many solutions to choose from, BambooHR stands among the leaders while the ultimate, and the rather expensive, winner would be SAP SuccessFactors.
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